Michael Boatwright was released from Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on Aug. 6, 2013, and took a taxi to Roy's Desert Resource Center. / Brett Kelman, The Desert Sun

Written by

Brett Kelman

The Desert Sun

A year ago, a downtrodden, penniless American with a talent for tennis came to the Coachella Valley on longshot hopes of finding a coaching job. A few days later, he awoke in a desert hospital, speaking only Swedish, with no recollection of who he was or why he was here.

This was the beginning to the peculiar tale of Michael Thomas Boatwright, an amnesia patient at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs who launched a globetrotting Hollywood-style mystery of missing memories. Boatwright lived at the hospital for five months, but his memory never returned. Ultimately, it seemed he was doomed to homelessness, so Riverside County bought him a flight to Sweden, hoping he could find a better life in a country where he could communicate.

Today, Boatwright lives in Uddevalla, a port city of about 31,000 people on the southwest coast of Sweden. Surrounded by people who share his language, no longer a stranger in his own country, the man without a memory has found peace, according to a story by Bohusläningen, the city newspaper. Boatwright spoke to the newspaper in February, his first interview since he flew to Sweden last August.

‘I feel like I’ve been born again. I’m so lucky,” Boatwright said to Bohusläningen, speaking in Swedish. “I feel like the town has received me as an ordinary person and not as a psycho.”

He finally found that tennis job, too.

Boatwright now works as a private tennis coach in the city, and works occasionally for the Uddevalla Tennis Club, said Per Fougberg, club chairman. Boatwright also played in a tennis tournament in Gothenburg last month, according to online tournament results.

On Thursday, Jerry Wengerd, director of the Riverside County Department of Mental Health, said he was thrilled to learn that Boatwright had found success in Sweden. The county had bought him a plane ticket because there was little help they could offer the Swedish-speaking amnesia patient. Wengerd said he approved the purchase because he had been assured Boatwright would receive help in Sweden. But once the plane left, the county never heard from Boatwright again.

“I’m ecstatic that he’s settled and he’s not continuing to move from one place to another in homelessness,” Wengerd said. “Being almost a year later, and finding out that he is doing well is the best news we could have had.”

“We’re pleased to hear reports that Michael Boatwright appears to be doing well in his new home,” Richard A. Ramhoff, director of marketing & public relations at Desert Regional Medical Center, said in an email to The Desert Sun. “Michael spent many weeks at Desert Regional and our social workers went above and beyond to help find an appropriate placement for him when he no longer needed hospital services. We are very grateful to the excellent staff at Roy’s Desert Resource Center and the County of Riverside, who were able to find a resolution that seems to have worked out well.”

Boatwright’s story in the desert began on Feb. 28, 2013, when he was found unconscious in a Palm Springs motel room. In his room were five tennis rackets, two cell phones, a set of photographs, a duffel bag of casual athletic clothes, a backpack, and a little bit of cash. He carried four forms of identification: a passport, California identification card, veteran’s medical card and a Social Security card. Each identified him as Michael Thomas Boatwright, 61, a Navy veteran from Florida.

But when Boatwright awoke in the hospital, that name meant nothing to him. Although he was American, he spoke only Swedish, and insisted he had lost his memory. He thought his name was Johan Ek.

Desert Regional was unwilling to release a patient who was broke, homeless, alone and unable to speak English, so Boatwright lived at the hospital for the next five months. Social workers dove into his past, hoping to find a friend or family member who could help the amnesia patient, but found none.

The Desert Sun first published Boatwright’s story in July, after the hospital reached out in hopes that mass media could reveal more about the mysterious man. The newspaper soon located Boatwright’s sister, Michelle Brewer in Louisiana, and a longtime friend, Gifford Searls in China.

It was Searls who unraveled the mystery, at least at bit. Searls explained that Boatwright had come to the desert from Zhuhai, a Chinese city on the border with Macau, where he taught English professionally and played tennis frequently.

Searls said Boatwright had fallen on hard times — his ex-wife had remarried, and his work visa had expired — so Searls bought his friend a ticket back to the United States, hoping he could find a fresh start in the desert, where tennis is a popular pastime.

Boatwright flew to Palm Springs on Feb. 24. Four days later, he was found unconscious in the hotel room, and the memory mystery began.